El hombre del peluquín

Donald Trump, The Donald, recently dubbed “el hombre del peluquín” (the man of the toupee), has made this election so enjoyable to watch. He has taken a process which is like a year and a half long episode of Charlie Rose and turned it into Jerry Springer. In just 3 short months we have witnessed, in no particular order… hand to hand combat with Jorge Ramos, the destruction of Lindsey Graham’s cell phone, Jeb’s “low energy,” that “loser” McCain, Mexican rapists, a wall that those smart Mexico government guys will pay for to keep themselves out, the cancelling of the Miss America pageant, China, China, China… the list goes on. You can’t make up TV this good!

However, I will say that I am incredibly surprised and frankly a little terrified that Trump hasn’t flamed out by now. It’s amazing how a man who spends so much time talking out of his ass can remain so popular. I am struggling to find a single thing which either makes sense or how any reasonable person could think is realistic.

All that being said… I retain hope in the American people that (at the latest) once this gets out of the primaries and you get away from the Republican hard-core, the remaining folks will largely agree that he is a crackpot. Assuming this is justified, this primary will end in one of three ways, all of which are fantastic for Hillary or Biden or whoever. The Republicans will either: A) nominate a crackpot, b) nominate a real candidate and have that crackpot run against them as a third party candidate or C) nominate a serious candidate who nobody will know anything about because everyone has been covering the crackpot for the past 8 months.

He is completely sucking the wind out of all other candidates. Nobody else gets to say anything that gets covered. For every 10 media mentions that Trump gets you will get one jumbled mess one about everyone else… you know that time Walker Texas Randger drove his Fiorrari into a sanatorium in Santa Cruz while eating Graham crackers. And this isn’t limited to this country. In the past month, I have spent time in Thailand, Norway and Sweden and I have never felt lacking for Trump news – it is the only thing American which gets covered and his coverage in the foreign press gets equal footing with bombings, tragic refugee deaths and wars.

The only way the Republicans win this is for them to elect a serious candidate (i.e. not Trump) and then for Trump to get solidly behind that person and support/campaign for them just as vigorously as he is doing for himself. Given that Trump has spent his career actively developing his personal brand and promoting himself, this seems incredibly unlikely.